Destination Dallas: Big Doin's in Big "D"

Think you need a pickup truck, a Stetson hat and a pair of snake-and-ostrich-skin cowboy boots to have big time in Big D? AVweb's own Liz Swaine says it probably wouldn't hurt but don't come to Dallas thinking you're going to meet Hoss Cartwright. Nowadays, you'll be just as likely to be sitting next to an investment banker as a cowboy as you're digging into a plate of ribs at a Dallas BBQ joint. Big D is big fun, though, and well worth a trip or ten. Liz lives just up V566 in Shreveport, La., and has made quite a few Dallas excursions. She reports even those people who reside in Dallas will never be able to experience all that this incredible city on the Texas plains has to offer.

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About the Author ...

Liz Swaine is
a member of the AVweb news writing team. A private instrument-rated
pilot, she owns and flies a 1966 Mooney M-20E affectionately known as "Mike" and
a Russian Yak-52 affectionately known as "Yak-52." Liz's love for aviation began
some years ago when, as a reporter at a TV station in Pensacola, Fla., she was
assigned the Blue Angels beat. From there, she moved to Shreveport, La. and, as
news anchor at the ABC affiliate, traveled the world covering the happenings at
Barksdale Air Force Base. She has traveled to Russia to cover the fall of
communism, to Saudi Arabia to report on the build up to Desert Storm, and to
Israel to look at the Arab-Israeli peace process up close. Her latest position
-- as executive assistant to the dynamic mayor of Shreveport -- is showing her
what the political world looks like from the inside, and she reports the sausage
analogy is right on ... you may enjoy what it tastes like, but you probably
don't want to see it being made. The fast pace of her life extends to her play
... she is a former triathlete and currently into high intensity weight
training. Liz recently married airshow pilot and airplane builder Steve Culp,
who likes airplanes as much as she does and can fix 'em, too. Their dark, hairy
daughter named "Mollie" looks suspiciously like a dog.

Let's get one thing straight right off. Texas is a big state. Big. The
state motto is "Everything Is Bigger in Texas" and folks there are
dead serious when they say it. Another motto is "Don't Mess With
Texas." They mean that, too. I spent the longest two years of my life one
day driving across Texas from Marshall to El Paso. Every radio station from
Dallas west seemed to be playing twangy old-style country and western music. Patsy
Cline was going crazy and I was, too.

Once you get west of Fort Worth, your only choice for bathrooms or food is one
of the ubiquitous Dairy Queens that dot the flat Texas landscape. I believe it
to be a physical impossibility to go into a DQ to use the restroom and not buy
a chocolate-dipped cone or Dilly Bar. (Note to self: Answer for Alex Trebek.
"This many Hunger-Buster Meals can be eaten before a butt measures 40
inches across.") Texas is a state tailor-made for flying. It's easier on both your
backside and your waistline.

Getting There

If you're planning on flying to Dallas, know that the city is big, too ... even
when you're a few thousand feet overhead. The Dallas-Fort Worth area is Class B
airspace, and within that airspace is something like 87 airports. All right,
maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's all right. Texas (it's big, remember?)
screams for large statements. If you pull out your sectional and peruse the
Class B, you will count more than 20 airports of the whopping huge, just
big, and this-would-be-big-in-any-other-state-but-Texas variety.

Your first job will be to decide where in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex you
want to stay and what you want to do when you get there. That will help you
narrow down which airport you'll want to fly into. If you're looking to take
in the car races at the Texas Motor Speedway, Alliance might be the airport
for you. If it's shopping, head for Addison. To be right in the middle of
everything, you'll love Love Field.

Bravo! VFR...

Don't let the Class B airspace scare you. Controllers won't sop you in salsa and eat
you for lunch, and in only one case have they been known to "boot" the tire of
a hardheaded pilot's airplane. What they will expect of you is some prior
planning. If you decide to fly in VFR, make sure to mark your sectional so you
know where the Class B starts, or pay dang close attention to your GPS. You
won't be able to legally enter the Class B until you've established contact,
knocked on the door, and been invited in. They do not look kindly on
accidental incursions, and the phone call you might have to make won't be
pleasant, pardner. VFR flight following isn't a magic bullet, either, as your
controller will drop you a few miles outside of the Class B, give you a
frequency to contact and tell you to squawk 1200.

Getting in is generally hassle-free, though. You contact the controller, tell him who
and where you are and where you want to go, and you're given a transponder
code and a heading. Only once during a particularly busy day did a controller
tell me "unable," so I just flew a couple of 360s and tried again,
successfully. If the thought of talking to a Class B controller still makes
your knickers ride up, you can always fly in under the Class B and land at one
of the outlying airports. I did that once for some odd reason and I wouldn't
do it again. The folks at the airport were nice as all get out, but the hassle
in procuring a rental car and getting to and from didn't justify avoiding the
controllers.

...And IFR

The smooth way to get into the Class B is to fly in IFR. You'll be routed to
one of the four "cornerposts" that form a box around the airspace, told to fly
a radial to an intersection with a name like 'Howdy,' and welcomed in. Whether
you are flying IFR or VFR, with GPS or without, once inside the airspace your
challenge will be the same: to spot your destination airport amid the area's
thousands of roads, highways, shopping malls and industrial parks. Don't be
bashful about telling the controller you haven't seen the airport. The worst
he can do is talk real slooow so all the other pilots on the frequency know
that you're dumber than dirt.

As stupid as you feel, your situation will
likely not compare to the pilot with a tenuous grasp of English who was
hopelessly lost over Dallas a few years ago but didn't seem to realize it.
After trying repeatedly to get the pilot to land at an airport, any airport,
the exasperated controller asked him, "What are your intentions?" to which the
pilot replied in heavily accented English, 'To be ... a commercial airline
pilot.'

To D Or Not To D: That Is The Question

Actually, it isn't. The better question is, "What is there to do in
D?" That,
of course, will depend on how much time, money, and patience you have, and
what you like to do. My last trip over was to take in the Casino Magic 500
Indy Car Race at the brand spankin' new Texas Motor Speedway
(TMS). Let me
tell you how impressed I was. Not so much with TMS ... it's just another
multimillion-dollar facility in which up to 200,000 screaming fans can stand
while watching drivers hurtle themselves at 200 mph around a notoriously
tricky track. No, count me impressed with the fine array of delectable eats. Never before have I been to a place that offered
beer, bar-b-que pork, beer, foot-long corn dogs, beer, chili cheese dogs, beer
and My Favorite Beef Jerky. Color me smitten. Did I mention one could buy beer
there?

My husband Steve and I actually had time to check out all the jerky flavors as
the race was cancelled because of rain. Imagine my dismay when I found out the
drivers wouldn't even pull their cars onto a wet track. How safety conscious
can you be when you make your living driving just inches off the bumper of a
car careening through turns at 180 mph? Though our tickets were
free, I was indignant, and told Steve the whole safety thing has become way
overblown. The only vehicles that ventured onto the track were the trucks
equipped with jet engines that blow water off the track to dry it, to no
avail. (Note to self: Find out if the TBO on those engines is measured in hours or
laps.)

All too soon, we had to bid My Favorite Beef Jerky adieu and go in search of
other food. I have shaped the mistake we made at this point into advice that
could save your current or future relationship, your money and your sanity. It
is very simple, but very important: Know where you want to eat before you get
on a major highway and just start to "drive." Despite the fact that the city
of Addison, which abuts Dallas to the north, claims a close to one-to-one
restaurant-to-resident ratio, you will not find a nice restaurant (e.g.,
more
upscale than Popeye's) there or anywhere else if you didn't plan to find it.
Though Dallas has every sort of dining experience you can imagine — I've had
great Mediterranean, Greek, Vietnamese, Indian, even Ethiopian cuisine in the
area — if you aren't
heading for a specific address, you will see only IHOPS, Denny's, and dollar
burritos at Circle K. We ate at a new Dallas restaurant called House of Swill
and Vermin. I would not recommend it.

Plan B From Outer Addison

Since we had unexpected time on our hands, Steve and I decided to have a
little adventure. We had spotted a Laser Tag location earlier in the day, and
returned, determined that it was our destiny to rule the Laser Tag universe. I
was not at all embarrassed that Steve and I were older than anyone by 20 years. I was not ashamed when one mother with
12 seven-year-olds asked if
we were there chaperoning another group. I was not red-faced when I told the
teenaged attendant that I wanted my "player" name to be
"Hannibal" because once the game started, I was going to eat some of
the seven-year-olds with fava beans and a nice chianti. I was embarrassed when
the action began and I morphed from a woman with a fairly pronounced dislike
of guns and violence into Arnold Schwarzenegger on double testosterone with an
attitude. It was my goal to kill every single person in the place, as many
times as possible, with steely determination. I would have made it, too, if
not for seven-year-old "Pokemon Boy." Perhaps I went too far when I
turned to Pokemon Boy and said, "If you shoot me one more time, I am going to
beat you to death." It must have been the cold, hard way I was looking at him.
I could see fear in his eyes as he turned on his heel, shot me again, and
starting laughing. Thankfully for him, play ended, and everyone moved to a
screen to wait on the point totals. I was devastated when I saw how many more
points Steve had scored than I. Later he told me how. HE had been the one
following me around, shooting me over and over. It got cold that night in
Dallas.

To Fly High And Touch The Sky

We were speaking again the next day, and decided to take a break from Laser
Tag. We had our choice of 10 aviation museums in the area, a vintage aviation
store, an aviation art gallery, and a space shuttle ride at Six Flags Over
Texas guaranteed to leave your stomach on terra firma while taking your body
into space, or vice versa. We decided on the museums and started with the
Frontiers of Flight at Love Field. We knew we had arrived when we saw the
full-scale Sopwith Pup hanging from the ceiling of the terminal. The museum
doesn't have enough space to display airplanes, but it does have a lot of
smaller items, such as china from the Hindenburg and Glenn Curtiss' original
pilot's license. My favorite display was the groovy "stewardess" outfits from
the 60s and 70s. Austin Powers would be proud — they were most shagadelic.

Since we wanted to see some full-size airplanes, we went north to Claire
Chennault road at the Addison Airport, home to the Cavanaugh Flight Museum.
You can spend all the time you want poring over the beautiful Fokker D-VII
while listening to the museum guides talk about the history behind the
original and replica aircraft. Move to the second hangar, and admire the
45,000-hour restoration job done on a B-25J nicknamed How 'Boot That? During
the restoration Jack Kowalik, who painted the original nose art in December of
1944, came to the museum to leave his mark once more — this time in July of
1995.

There are so many things to do in the greater DFW area that I can sadly just
scratch the surface. I would encourage a trip to Medieval Times, where serving
wenches bring you food, but no silverware, and knights joust 10 feet away as
you down your Middle Ages Diet Pepsi. The people at Medieval Times will snap
your picture as you are waiting to take your seat and offer to sell it to you
later. Buy it! You will look so ridiculous in the paper hat they put on your
head that if anyone else gets hold of the picture, life for you in polite
society will end. Go to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum in Grand Prairie
and marvel at the hairs on Elvis' head, inserted one at a time by their master
model maker ... Believe It Or Not!

And always keep your eyes open for the
humorous moments. It has been a long-standing joke in Texas that Dallas women
have bigger hair than anyone else on the planet. It has even given life to a
description: Dallas Hair. As my Dallas hairdresser once put it, "Girl, that
hair was just jacked up to Jesus."

So go. Have fun. Eat and drink and buy you some boots and dance at a
honky-tonk until dawn. Have a bet riding on who spots the biggest hair first.
But just you remember one important point. Everything else from here on out
won't quite match up, 'cause hair or otherwise, it don't git no bigger than
Texas.

Question of the Week

Picture of the Week

As aviation photos go, this was the best this week but there are some great beauty shots when you click through. In the meantime, congratulations to Daniel Gillette for this very nice photo he calls Sunset Pitch-Out. The photo is copyrighted by Gillette.